It’s funny in the same way that hearing your worst enemy went bankrupt is funny: not REALLY funny – actually kind of tragic – but it’s all about the context. It shouldn’t be funny, but it is. It. Just. Is.
Adam Maxwell’s debut short story collection, Dial M for Monkey, brings together twenty stories which combine the morbid satire of Chuck Palahniuk at his most twisted with the wry playfulness of Mark Twain – two literary flavors probably never destined to be combined. But once someone dared to overstep the bounds, the result was deliciously dark and witty, gruesome at times, but leaving an sense of satisfaction never before seen since the invention of the Irish Car Bomb.
Winding its way through construction-site mutilation, live burial, and the robbery of a veterinarian’s office, Dial M for Monkey never leaves the reader with the impression that something has been left unsaid. The characters are people who, were they flesh and bone, would dwell on the outskirts of society – not necessarily because they were ostracized but by choice. Some are like you and me. Some are disturbed, outrageous folk who, in some societies, might be considered sociopaths … but you still kind of want to hang out with them anyway. They see the ugliness of humanity and want no part of it; and yet somehow manage to both make peace with it and see the divine humor in it all.
The beauty of these stories lies in the brevity. While a few of the stories take several pages to unfurl, the ones that impressed me most are those whose page count doesn’t exceed two or three pages. Maxwell has proven himself to be quite clearly a master at the art of flash fiction. He gets in, gets out, and delivers a punch that leaves you asking, “What just happened?” He creates three- dimensional characters in barely a page and a half with ease. He gives the reader a glimpse into the lives of obsessive-compulsives (“Sandwiches”), John Lennon devotees (“Happiness is a Warm Gun”), and old men who haven’t given up their world to the young whippersnappers of the streets (“A Stroll Along the Prom, Prom, Prom”) – and all that is done in the blink of an eye.
These stories are about revenge, redemption, and, of course, monkeys. They are about looking out for yourself and your own. They are about family, and the crap you have to put up with when you are a member of one. They are about not fucking with a Mafia-esque art collector who wants to bury you alive in the woods. They are about finding yourself in the most absurdly ridiculous situation you can imagine, laughing, and punching that situation square in its metaphorical face.
In the end, I think, what it all comes down to is this: how can you NOT like a book containing a story entitled “I Almost Spanked a Monkey”?
I mean, really.
Try it.
I’m telling you: you can’t.
–Dawn Frary
—
Cautionary Tale is always worth a visit
